


questions

by foxmagpie



Series: little gifts [8]
Category: Good Girls (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-04
Updated: 2019-07-04
Packaged: 2020-06-03 18:55:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19470082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxmagpie/pseuds/foxmagpie
Summary: Set within 2x11 but diverges from canon. Beth breaks into Rio's house, but doesn't leave when asked. She meets Marcus's mother at an inopportune time, and she and Rio have their own version of an honest conversation.





	questions

The days pass by in slow motion, and it’s wearing on Beth. The six hours the kids spend in school are excruciating, and Beth doesn’t have enough to do to fill the time. 

What had she done before book club? What had filled her days, made her feel so busy and tired? She can’t remember now. She crafts a little, but feels bored after the first hour. She cooks, but even if she follows a recipe perfectly, the food tastes bland in her mouth. She cleans, but after two weeks the house is spotless in ways it hasn’t been in years.

Weeks pass. Fall mixers, real book clubs, addiction meetings—they all blur together. 

When she lies in bed with Jane and reads her a bedtime story she thinks, _This is what matters_. When she watches Kenny make a perfect free throw she thinks, _This is why_. When Emma asks to help bake cookies, or when Danny crawls into Beth’s bed after a nightmare, she thinks, _This is worth it_. 

But it’s so hard to remember that in the moments in between.

–--

Her phone starts buzzing with a blocked number on Thanksgiving, and though she can’t answer it, it’s what flashes through her mind when Dean asks everyone to go around the table and say what they’re thankful for. 

In the quiet moments when she’s been laying in the dark trying to fall asleep, she hasn’t been able to help beating herself up, thinking about how Rio had let her go so easily, how he was confirming every insecurity she had about her value or contributions in his operation, among other things. 

She kept coming to the same frustrating conclusion: if he didn’t miss her, why was she missing him?

When the phone calls start, she feels the weight pressing on her chest start to get chipped away. Even if she can’t answer it, knowing that he’s trying sends tingles down her spine. 

–--

Eventually, he comes looking for her. Beth tries not to look at him, tries to turn him away, and she’s doing so well but—he knows her. He knows her curiosity will get the best of her, and when she finally turns around and she looks at him, it’s painful. 

He looks the same, mostly. His facial hair is more grown out, though, and normally she’s not that into that but…

His face is smug, almost triumphant, when she calls him back to tell her what he knows. Beth can’t help it: when he gives her that look, she feels her resolve crumbling. 

–--

Beth rides the high of the FBI raid for twenty-four hours, until Dean’s suspicions sober her. He’s furious that Rio has reappeared and Beth wants to scream at him. He _saved_ them, and he’d asked for nothing in return. 

Well. She believed that until she opened her mail, at least.

“It’s personal,” Beth says, staring at the frozen appendage sitting on her kitchen island. “He wants me back.” She tries to make her voice sound horrified—and she _is_ , she _is_ horrified—but also, the dark, twisty, sick part of her? It remembers the way his eyes had felt on her, and for a moment, that part of her feels sated. _He wants her back_.

“There’s nicer ways to say it, Gang Friend,” Annie mumbles.

“I blocked his number,” Beth says, as if this reasonably explains why he has escalated to sending her dead body parts through FedEx. 

“Greeting card. I mean, e-card, edible arrangement... “

“So what are you gonna do?” Ruby asks.

Beth takes the finger (toe?) and shoves it down the garbage disposal. As the blades whir and chop it up, Beth has to fight back the urge to vomit.

“What can I do?” Beth asks. “Dean’s already upset. He thinks something’s going on because I knew about the FBI raid.”

“ _I_ _s_ something going on?” Ruby asks, point blank.

“No!”

“You want us to believe this is professional? Just business?” Annie asks, frowning. 

“Look, I can’t imagine Homeboy isn’t feeling some kind of _something_ ,” Ruby says. “You guys were all hot and heavy, and then you just… went back to Deansie.”

“Is this just him, like, all in his feelings?” Annie asks, leaning on her elbows. “Because this is some twisted shit. Can’t he just, like, I don’t know, stand on your lawn with a boombox?”

“Or remember that scene in _Love Actually_?” Ruby asks. “He could have you pretend he’s a caroler and he can write up all these romantic signs for you to read while your husband’s in the other room, you know, like ‘I like you even though you got me arrested’ and ‘Now you need to do what I say or I’ll turn you into the FBI’.”

“Yeah, but it’s only November. It’s way too early for carolers,” Annie points out. “Dean wouldn’t buy it.”

“Mmm. True,” Ruby assents.

“We weren’t—we _weren’t_ hot and heavy,” Beth says, just to get them to stop. “Nothing happened. And I’m not _back_ with Dean. It’s… complicated.”

“Come _on_.” Annie rolls her eyes. “We were _there_. We saw everything. You mean to tell me nothing happened after that? He called you _mama_.”

Beth freezes. She never told them about the phone sex or the goodbye sex, and she can’t—it feels too different, too private. 

“You _did_ ,” Annie declares. “God, you are so obvious. See? Flared anus, like a baboon.”

“I told you never to say that again.”

Annie shrugs. 

“Beth?” Ruby asks, noticing that Beth’s face is white. 

“Okay. It wasn't _nothing_. But nothing—nothing significant. It was just sex. We both knew that. And it wasn’t like it was a regular thing or anything. It just happened a couple of times.”

Ruby has one eyebrow raised. Annie stands with her arms crossed over her chest.

“Well, he doesn’t want _us_ ,” Annie says. “I don’t have any body parts in _my_ mail, so I don’t think it’s 'just business.'”

“He doesn’t know your address,” Beth points out.

“Yeah... ‘Cause _that’s_ what’s stopping him. He couldn’t possibly have the resources to discover that information.”

“Stop.”

“It doesn’t matter who he wants or why he wants it, Annie,” Ruby says. “We’re _all_ wrapped up in this. He’s not going to take no for an answer, Beth. You know he’s not. You have to go see him.”

“I can’t,” Beth says. 

It turns out she’s wrong, though. Body parts start arriving every day, and soon whatever she felt about being _wanted_ gets chopped up and swirls down the drain with the bones and cartilage. This is too far for her, too terrifying. 

How many body parts can he send her before he gives up on her, before he goes to the FBI? How long will he wait until he shows back up here with a gun? Until he leaves behind some little gifts that Dean finds and she loses her kids?

She has to talk to him.

–--

Beth is in disbelief that the neighbor’s fire escape trick _worked_ —she’d expect Rio to live in an apartment with maximum security, considering—but that disbelief doesn’t come close to matching what Beth feels as she stands up and takes in Rio’s home.

The cleanliness of his car? That was nothing compared to _this_. 

There’s art _everywhere_. Pops of green draw the eye (his favorite color?) and there’s this perfect eclectic mix of industrial and mid-century modern and exposed brick. Sculptures and vases line the shelves, and Rio’s got baskets and boxes and all sorts of furniture with drawers. How the hell is she going to go through all this? How is she supposed to find a storage locker key in _here_?

Beth had trailed him today, hoping he would lead her here, and he did. After failing to wash the exorbitant amount of cash he'd given them in order to make-up the debt Annie and Ruby had racked up without her (she was both furious with them and painfully jealous that they had gone behind her back to see him without her), Beth's here to try and find a storage unit key, where she assumes Rio must be hiding Boomer's body. She figures she has about an hour to search, considering she saw Rio walking Marcus to the car in full baseball gear.

Beth’s got a repeating question cycling through her mind: _Did he decorate this all himself_ _?_

There are framed photos—recent—of him and Marcus. _Did_ he _pick out those frames?_ She imagines him walking through Pier 1 or Crate and Barrel, going to pick up his photos at the Walgreens Photo Center. Picturing him doing perfectly normal things always amuses her, but it's hard to feel amusement when she's this... surprised.

There’s decorative boxes lining the shelves, holding important papers. _Did he go to the Container Store and pick them out himself_? He’s got curtains on each of his floor-to-ceiling windows. _Had he chosen them, installed them_?

There’s a record player. Beth knows that she isn’t going to find what she’s looking for going through his box of records, but she does anyway. She doesn’t recognize most of it, it’s all in Spanish, but she recognizes Selena’s _Amor Prohibido_ album, and she can’t help but smile. If she was given a thousand guesses, she never would’ve pegged him as a Selena fan.

There’s no TV, and she wonders what he does with Marcus when he’s being a handful? How he must relax after a long day? 

Beth doesn’t touch Marcus’s room. She knows she’s broken into his home, and she knows that he once dropped a bleeding gunshot victim onto her daughter’s bed, but it feels like crossing a line, so she avoids it.

She basically has a religious experience in his closet, until she opens a small box on an upper shelf and her heart lodges in her throat. _He’s got her panties carefully tucked away in his closet_. 

Beth can hardly breathe and her mind is racing. Why did he still have them? For what purpose was he keeping them? Should she take them back or— _would he notice_? Still, though, somehow the knowledge that he’s saved them—that it’s also the only piece of evidence of a woman she’s found in his whole apartment—it does something to her. She folds them gently and returns them to the box. 

She saves his bedside table for last. Inside she finds a collection of watches—it’s the one in the middle that he’d been wearing when he went over that clock lesson with Jane—and some sunglasses, and one other flat box, tucked in the back of the drawer. She clicks the box open. 

Sitting inside the box are her _pearls_ , the ones she’d left on the warehouse. She’d assumed he had hawked them, gotten money for them. What reason did he have to keep them? She could see how the panties were a trophy of some sort, but she’d given him the pearls way before she ever thought that he could even be remotely interested in her...

 _Well, if I’m going to be buying body parts back for the rest of my life, I guess_ I _should hawk it_ , she thinks, and she slips the necklace into her coat pocket.

Finally, she spots some keys. She pulls out her own from her pocket, but she can’t find a match. There’s no storage locker key on this keychain. Frustrated, she tosses the keys back in there and slams the drawer when—

“Find what you’re lookin’ for?”

Beth’s heart jumps into her throat. She should have had an hour.

“No.”

“You wanna tell me what it is?” 

“No.”

Rio’s entire body tenses and he rolls his shoulders back in frustration. “Aight,” he says, and he starts walking towards her, closing the gap between them. She thinks about both of them crossing the room to each other in her bedroom, over a month ago now, and she feels lightheaded. “Let’s play a game, yeah? Twenty questions. I’ll start. Why’d you follow me around all day?”

 _So he knew_ , Beth thinks. She focuses on remaining poised, not flinching. _He knew you were following him, and he didn’t stop you_. The question rolls around in her head: _Why_?

“Was that your ex-wife?” she blurts. She should ask a practical question, something like, _Will you hold this body over my head forever?_ But she is so curious. It had to be Marcus’s mom. _Does she know about your job? Does she know you send women body parts to scare them? Does she know about the gold gun that’s always decorating your hip?_

“Eighteen.”

“That’s not an answer. _Christopher_ ,” she says, trying his name, his _real_ name, out on her tongue.

Rio smiles, amused at her sleuthing. 

The game continues, neither of them answering each other, neither of them giving an inch. She can feel the tautness of the tension between them tightening, and Beth starts to lose her cool the closer he gets to her. 

He’s less than a foot from her. “It’ll take a _lifetime_ to wash all that money,” Beth huffs. She’ll never be out from under his thumb—she can’t do what he’s asking of her. Doesn’t he know he’s set her up in a losing game? Doesn’t he _care_?

“Yeah, that’s kind of the point,” he says. His grin splits his whole face, crinkles his eyes. Beth feels her stomach drop. How can he make her feel this way when they’re arguing about the dead body parts he’s sending her in the mail? What the fuck is wrong with her? Why is she almost _flattered_ that he seems to have an interest in keeping her around for a lifetime?

“When does it end?” she asks him.

He brings his hand up to her face, pushes her hair out of the way, traces his finger along her cheek. He _knows_ what that does to her.

“One question left. Want it?” He’s looking at her eyes, at her lips, reading her face. He moves even closer to her, their noses are nearly touching, and Beth can feel his breath on her. Surely he can hear her heart pounding against her ribcage. “Would you please leave my house now?”

The question infuriates her—she’s failed at her mission, she’s embarrassed herself, and she just sat there and let him play on her attraction to him. Beth’s blood boils, and she decides she’s not going to take it. He knows the effect he has on her, but she can feel the pearls weighing down her pocket and she’s fairly certain he’s not immune to what she does to him either.

“I’m taking these back,” Beth says, reaching into her coat and holding the necklace up by his face. His eyes glance at her hand to take in what she’s holding, and he swallows. 

With the pearls lacing around her fingers, she rubs the back of her index finger along his beard feeling the coarse hair. “You’re growing your hair out,” she observes softly. Beth pinches his chin and then places her lips gingerly against his jawline. “It looks good.”

Beth draws back to look at him, to see the effect she's produced in him, and his eyes have darkened. She’s is about to drop her hand when Rio’s own hand flies up to grip her wrist so fast she doesn’t see it coming. His fingers are firm, almost uncomfortable. “Don’t.”

“Don’t _what_?” Beth sneers. 

“Don’t tease.” His lips are pressed into a firm line.

“Frustrating, isn’t it?” she asks, refusing to look away from him.

“That’s one word for it,” he murmurs. 

Beth takes her other hand, the one he’s not suspending in midair by their faces, and she splays it on his chest. 

“Don’t,” he warns again, but Beth can feel his spasming heartbeat underneath her fingers.

“Or _what_?” 

“Or I’m not gonna feel like being gentle,” Rio whispers. 

Beth leans up into him so she’s speaking directly in his ear. “Gentle when?”

“When I fuck you 'til you’re writhing underneath me,” Rio whispers, and it sends a chill down Beth’s spine. 

Beth runs her tongue along her upper lip and stands on her toes, reaching up to kiss him. Rio moans when she pulls away and drags his lip through her teeth.

“Take off your clothes,” Rio demands. He lets go of his grip on her wrist to slide his hand up to interlock his fingers with her, the pearls strung between them. “But put these on.”

Rio steps back three paces to watch Beth get undressed. First, her coat comes off, then her sweater. He licks his lips and Beth’s relieved she’s wearing a nicer bra this time around. 

“Keep goin,” he says roughly.

Beth unbuttons her pants and wriggles out of them. Beth smiles at him, then turns her back towards him to unhook her bra. Only her underwear is still on—a lacy black number. 

“Do I gotta do everything?” he asks stepping towards her. He gets close enough to run a hand up her ribs, then he starts kissing her neck as he palms her breast roughly from behind. His facial hair irritates her skin, but she sinks into his kisses anyway. He pinches her nipple between his fingers and she feels it grow hard. 

With his other hand, he pulls her hair so that her head falls back and her neck is exposed. He reaches over her and lays the pearls on her clavicle, then pushes her hair back out of the way so that he can secure the clasp. 

“I’m gonna come on these,” he says, tracing his fingers along the round white stones. “And then I’m gonna want to watch you taste it.”

Beth closes her eyes and shivers, imagining being able to watch him lose control and spill onto her, imagining tasting him. She moans a little. “You promise?”

Rio pushes her down face first onto the bed. She lands on her stomach and goes to lift herself up onto her arms when Rio grips her hips, pulls her back to him, and lifts her up so that she’s on all fours, balancing on her forearms and knees. He tears her panties down to her thighs and runs his fingers along her folds, feeling how wet she is.

Rio puts two digits inside of her and starts pumping quickly. Beth vibrates with pleasure. 

“Seems like you like it a li’l rough, yeah?” he says, then he slaps her ass. Beth whimpers, but he's right: she does likeit. “You’re sopping wet, mama.” He inserts another finger and he fucks her with his hand hard and fast. 

“I want to feel you,” Beth whines. 

Rio quickly removes his hand from her and she feels empty. She turns to look at him and he licks her off his fingers. Beth blushes a deep crimson. 

He begins to unbuckle his belt, pulls his pants down just enough. Beth turns back around and feels him press his erection into her ass. Beth can feel how hard he is for her and she presses back against him.

“You want my cock?” Rio asks, rocking against her.

“Yes,” Beth says.

“Now?”

“Yes,” Beth says again.

He digs his nails into her hips while he positions himself, and then in one swift motion, he’s slamming into her, filling her. Rio is frenzied and wild with her. He fucks her hard and yanks her hair. He bites her shoulders and bruises her hips. Beth makes noises she never knew she was capable of. 

At one point he pulls out of her—just when she’s close—and flips her upside down. He crawls on top of her and leaves a rough hickey on her breast as he buries himself in her. He’s still mostly dressed, which drives Beth crazy, so she tugs on his shirt and makes him lift up his arms so that she can throw it off the side of the bed. 

“I want you against the wall,” Rio insists when she tries to roll on top of him and take control. He wrestles her onto her back again.

“I want you naked,” she says.

Rio scrambles to lose the rest of his clothes and then he picks Beth up easily, like she’s nothing, letting her legs intertwine around his hips. He presses her against the brick and it’s sharp, bumping, and hard—not at all pleasant, really, except that the juxtaposition between _that_ and the feeling of Rio thrusting into her while his fingers work at her clit is just… _divine_.

Beth does call out his name, over and over, as he fucks her through her orgasm. She feels limp and weak afterward, bone tired, but Rio keeps her propped up. He sucks on her neck and starts to nibble.

“No,” she says. “You can’t leave marks where—where Dean can see.”

“What if I want to?” Rio asks into her collar bone. 

“Rio, _no_ ,” she insists. He reaches that perfect spot within her again, and she claws at his back.

“You’re going to make me come again,” she says through gritted teeth.

After her second orgasm, Rio pulls her away from the wall and tells her to get on her knees on the floor in front of him. 

He finishes just like he said he promised he would, and Beth keeps her promise, too, swiping a finger through the come that drips down her chest. She stares him in the eye she licks it off her finger. 

–--

Rio lets out a shaky breath and presses his hand to the wall to steady himself. He sees Beth’s back is red all over, and he rubs his hand gently against it from above her.

“Are you okay?” he asks. His frenzy has subsided and he’s almost calm again. His eyes are soft when he looks at her. 

“I’m okay,” she says. “Probably feel it tomorrow, but I’m okay.”

Rio nods and holds out a hand to help Beth stand up from her position on her knees. 

“I need to clean up,” she says. 

“Well, I assume you know where the bathroom is,” he deadpans, reminding her that this had all started because she broke into his house. Beth darts into the restroom, using a small wash cloth to tidy up her legs and chest, carefully wiping down the pearls.

Distantly, she hears Rio’s phone ringing, and when she steps back out of the bathroom, he’s standing on the fire escape in just his jeans, talking into the phone. He looks tense and frustrated, his jaw working as he listens to whatever the other person is saying.

Beth is studying him, trying to figure out what the problem might be when she hears knocking on the front door.

 _Shit_ , she thinks. She’s still naked.

Her eyes dart to the pile of clothing they’ve left on the floor. She finds her jeans before her underwear, so she shimmies them on, deciding she’ll worry about the other bit later. She raps quickly on the window, drawing Rio’s attention. She jabs her finger at the front door like _you’ve got company_ , but he just furrows his brows and gives her a confused wave. He thinks she’s _leaving_.

She can’t find her sweater immediately, so she slips on Rio’s black t-shirt. She’s just grabbing her bra and about to try and put it on when she hears keys in the lock and sees the door start to swing open. She drops the bra and kicks it underneath the bed.

“Hey, Chris, sorry to bug, pero Marcus forgot—”

Marcus and a woman—a different woman than the one she saw him hugging earlier today when he’d picked Marcus up—walk into the apartment. Marcus is still in his baseball gear, only he’s dirtier now. Both of them are startled to see Beth.

Beth feels the woman clock her pearl necklace and Rio’s shirt, obviously too small, stretching across Beth’s braless chest. The woman’s eyes are hard and her mouth is pursed.

“Hello. You are?” she asks, squinting.

“That’s Daddy’s friend!” Marcus declares.

“Hi,” Beth says awkwardly. “It’s Beth.” She holds out her hand, but the other woman only eyes it skeptically. “I’m so sorry. I was just, um, leaving.”

Just then Rio opens the window back up and starts crawling through.

“Elena,” he says, surprised. “What are you doing here?”

“Bien, podría preguntarte lo mismo sobre ella,” Elena says, her eyebrows shooting up. She tilts her head, gesturing towards Beth. Beth stands stock still, dumbfounded. “¿Esta es la razón por la que no pudiste recoger a tu hijo del entrenamiento del béisbol, eh?” 

Marcus whips his head back and forth between his parents. Elena, who must be his mother, is obviously mad about something, and it appears that that something is Beth.

“Elena,” Rio says, exasperated. “Esté respetuosa. Sabes qué ella no puede entenderte. No hables en español, yeah?” 

“No me digas qué hacer,” Elena rolls her eyes, crossing her arms over her chest.

“¡No peleen!” Marcus yells. 

“No luchemos delante de Marcus,” Rio says, voice firm.

“Bien,” Elena huffs. “El vestíbulo, entonces.”

“I’m gonna go,” Beth says slowly, inching away. Clearly she should not be here for this part. Nobody acknowledges her. She slips on her shoes, grabs her purse, and starts to walk toward the door. 

“Mommy and Daddy are going to have a chat outside, Pop,” she hears Rio say.

“Find your stuff while we’re out there, okay?” Elena tells him.

Beth has left behind her bra, her sweater, and her coat, but she can get those later, she decides. She hadn’t exactly wanted to rifle and sort through what was hers and what was Rio’s with everybody around.

It’s not until she gets down to her car that she realizes that her keys _aren’t_ in her purse—she’d kept them handy in her coat pocket for easy access to compare any keys she found in the apartment. 

“Shit,” she breathes. Beth re-enters the building and heads up the stairs very quietly when she hears voices carrying to the stairwell.

“—Elena, cálmate, f’real,” Beth hears Rio say. “It’s not what you think—”

“Oh, it’s not?” Elena mocks. It appears that now that Beth isn’t present, she’s switched back to English—or at least Spanglish. “You _didn’t_ tell me you couldn’t drop your son off after baseball practice para follar that white girl?” 

“Elena!”

“Christopher, this is bullshit, okay?” Elena says. “Wednesdays are _your day_ to transport Marcus. Creí que you had a real emergency, not some random hook-up.”

“Look, I don’t wanna get into this,” Rio says. “But it wasn’t like that.”

“What was it like then? Because all _I_ know is that I picked our son up and all he wanted to know was where you were. He kept going on and on about how you two always go for helado before you drop him back off with me. The whole drive over here was _helado, helado, helado_.”

“Look, lo siento, aight? I’ll get him some goddamn ice cream if you just chill.”

“It’s not about the ice cream.”

“What’s it about then, huh? Because you actin’ like this is some normal thing, me droppin’ balls in the air or some shit,” Rio pushes. “It was one time. It was a mistake. It won’t happen again.”

Beth doesn’t hear Elena respond, so Rio continues, “I know what it looks like, pero it wasn’t like that. I didn’t bail on my responsabilidades for that. I had a work thing—”

“¡Pura mierda! No soy estúpida. She was wearing _your_ t-shirt, _sin_ una _bra_ , _with_ pearls,” Elena lays it out all very logically. Beth realizes she can really hold her own with Rio. “You think I believe that was her outfit for the day? Her ropa was littered all over your floor, tonto.”

“Look, it really aint none of your business, amorcito.” Beth hears Rio click his teeth. “But I mean it when I say it _started_ as business.”

“Since when do you mix business and pleasure? I thought that was one of your oldest reglas, no?” 

“We gettin’ into this?” Rio asks. “I don’t ask you about your love life, yeah?”

Beth imagines Elena pursing her lips again. “Mine doesn’t affect our son.”

“And I already promised it won’t happen again.”

“¿Es serio?” Elena asks. She doesn’t sound jealous, exactly, but the tone is still accusatory. “Because if Marcus is about to have another woman in his life, I want to know about it.”

There’s a long pause and Beth waits with bated breath, but Rio doesn’t answer.

“You had her over at your apartment, Christopher,” Elena says, but her voice is softer now, even teasing. “No recuerdo any woman being brought back to your apartment en todos estos años. Come on—digamé. ¿Es serio?”

Beth doesn’t quite understand all of it, but she can tell Elena is teasing him about having a woman in his home, like that’s something unusual and strange for him. Beth uses common sense to translate the cognates. It sounds like she’s asking Rio if what they have is serious. 

“No sé,” Rio says finally, and Beth feels her vision go fuzzy and hears the blood pounding in her head. He’d said _no_. 

“¿Quieres que sea?” Elena asks gently. Beth has no idea what she’s saying now, and she's finding it hard to concentrate.

“Quizás,” Rio says. Beth can’t place his tone; his voice is too quiet. “Pero sabes que es difícil conmigo. Por ella también.” 

“Sí, lo recuerdo,” Elena says. Now that they’re not fighting, Beth can hardly hear her. “Bien, ella está bonita." There's a pause. "Keep me in the loop, alright? I don’t want to walk into that surprise again.” They laugh together and then Beth hears the front door swing open.

Rio calls, “Pop! Your mom is takin’ you back home. You find your backpack?”

The sound of Marcus’s little feet running across the floor and into the hallway reaches Beth. She realizes she better hurry if she doesn’t want Elena to find her eavesdropping on the stairwell.

Beth gets down to the street and presses herself against a divet in the building, just out of sight. 

“You know Daddy’s friend?” Beth can hear Elena say to Marcus one the front door of the building swings shut. 

“Yeah,” Marcus says. “She’s Jane’s mommy.”

“Who’s Jane?”

“My friend.”

“Oh, is that how Daddy knows her? You’re friends with her daughter?”

“I dunno,” Marcus says. “She’s at the park a lot. But I think Daddy like-likes her.”

“Oh?” Elena asks. They pass Beth at this point but don’t see her, thank goodness. Elena’s hand is on Marcus’s shoulder. “Why’s that?”

“Because,” Marcus says. “Whenever he talks about her he smiles all big, like Biso does when he remembers Bisa.”

“He talks about her?” Elena asks.

“Yeah, well, sometimes he gets off the phone and I ask who it is and he says it’s her. Then he smiles like _this_.” Beth can’t see his face, but he rearranges his features into something really silly because Elena bursts out laughing. “And one time Tía was making fun of him for being all goofy when we saw her at Chuck E. Cheese…”

Their voices fade the further away they get from Beth, and she stands against the wall, dumbfounded. It takes her a minute to regroup and prepare to walk back up to Rio’s door. 

Her mind is reeling from the whiplash of today. So far she’d stalked Rio around Detroit, broken into his apartment to try and steal back a body that he was terrorizing her with, had rough sex with him, been caught by the mother of his child, _and_ heard him deny feelings for her only to have his son theorize less than five minutes later that he _liked_ her?

What the hell was she supposed to do with all of that?

Beth tries to regulate her breathing as she makes the climb back up to the third floor. She hesitates before she knocks, but she really needs her purse.

Rio opens the door. 

“Figured I’d see you again,” he says. He’s still bare-chested and Beth finds it hard to look at him. “There were some important items hidin’ underneath my bed.”

“Yeah, my keys, for one,” Beth says. She looks past him into the loft, not meeting his eyes.

Rio steps aside to let her pass, and Beth beelines straight to his bed. Rio has already collected her clothing and has it folded in a neat pile.

“Turn,” she commands, and he looks the other way as she slides the bra on underneath the shirt. 

“Feelin’ shy?” he asks her. Beth ignores him, but he must glance back over at her, because as she makes to start taking off the shirt he says, “Nah, you can keep it.”

“Why?” she asks, eyes narrowing. Rio doesn’t seem like the type to enjoy sharing, well, _anything_. 

“Well, I don’t know what might happen if you get naked again,” he shrugs. 

“Aren’t you _exhausted_?” Beth asks. “I’m exhausted.” She flops onto his bed and lets out a long sigh. Rio doesn’t answer her, of course, but he seems in no hurry to make her leave again, either.

“You want some food?” he asks. 

As soon as he does, Beth feels how empty her stomach is. “Sure, what do you have?”

“I could make you a sandwich,” he offers, his eyes amused.

“Ha, ha.” Beth shakes her head and sits up. “I’m alright. I just need a minute.”

“Is that how long it will take?”

“Hmm?”

“Oh, I’m just waitin’ for you to bombard me with the questions.” He scratches his ear. “Is that not happenin’? Because if not, I gotta rethink everything I thought I knew about you.”

Beth rolls her eyes. “Would you even answer them? Or are you trying to play another round of the worst game of 20 Questions?”

“Maybe. Depends,” Rio answers. He’s standing there with his hands in his pockets, but his feet are fidgeting. 

Once again, Beth is completely confounded by him. He’s basically just had his life ripped open for Beth to witness, and now he was acting nonchalant, as if they hadn’t crossed some major line? This is the same guy who wouldn’t tell her the name of a song he was listening to, right?

“You go first,” Beth demands.

“You want me to ask you a question?” Rio clarifies. Beth nods. He considers his options. “Okay. I’ll try again: Why'd you follow me around all day?” 

“I wanted to break into your apartment. Had to follow you to find it,” Beth says, picking at her nails.

“Fair enough,” he says, and Beth thinks, _Nobody else on the planet has these kinds of conversations._ Who says “fair enough” to someone explaining that the reason they’d been stalking them all day was to break into their home? “Aight, your turn.” 

Beth thinks. She has about one hundred different things she’d like to ask him, but she decides to start with business. “If I can’t wash the cash for you, what are you going to do to me?” 

“Why can’t you wash it?” 

“It’s still my question,” Beth points out. “That’s not an answer.”

Rio’s jaw clenches and he licks the backs of his teeth. “That’s not an option,” he says. “You got a debt, and this is how you’ll pay it.”

“Yeah, but what happens if—”

“Not your turn,” Rio says. “You already asked your question. I answered. Now it’s me.”

“Fine.”

“Is this the first time you’ve followed me?” he asks, and Beth reddens. “No?” 

Beth studies the ceiling. “I waited and watched you at a drop once.”

“And? What’d you see?”

“My turn,” Beth says, and Rio grits his teeth. Beth smiles. “The rules are the rules… Okay. I’ve got one: what happened with your ex-wife back there? Why didn’t she like me?” 

“One, she’s not my ex-wife. Two, that’s two questions.”

“She’s not your ex-wife?”

“Three questions. Choose one.”

Beth exhales loudly. “Fine. Why doesn’t she like me, whoever she is?” 

“That _is_ Marcus’s mom,” Rio explains. “She’s just not my ex-wife. And she liked you fine.”

“Bullshit,” Beth laughs. 

“She said you were pretty,” Rio clarifies, shrugging. Beth raises her eyebrows. “What’d you see when you watched me at a drop? Which one was it?” 

Beth knows she could prod him about asking two questions during his turn, but they answer the same so she says, “It was the one where you had me drop a car off in a grocery store parking lot. You gave it to some woman. She was gorgeous, with an afro? You were all over her.” Beth swallows and looks at the art hanging over Rio’s bed as if it’s deeply interesting to her.

“Ah,” Rio says, but that’s it. 

“Was she your girlfriend?” Beth asks. 

“Nope,” Rio says, and she hates that he doesn’t offer an explanation.

“Were you sleeping with her?” 

“My turn,” he says, and he takes another step closer to her. “Were you jealous?” 

Beth looks away from him, but answers honestly. “Yes.” Rio takes another step towards her. She looks at him finally and asks again: “Were you sleeping with her?” 

“Yes,” Rio says. He reaches out to touch her face. 

“Before…? Or after we slept together?” Beth asks. 

“My turn,” he reminds her, but his voice is soft. “What’s it going to take to get you back in the business?” 

“Nothing. I can’t come back,” Beth sighs and breaks eye contact. Her fingers start fiddling with the belt loops on his jeans. 

“Mmm,” Rio says, like he doubts her answer.

“Did you sleep with that woman after we slept together?” 

“Yes,” Rio says, and then, surprisingly, he doesn’t stop there. “Her and one other.”

“Oh,” Beth says. She sort of wishes she hadn’t asked it, but she also appreciates his honesty. 

“What about you?” He runs his hand through her hair.

“What about me?”

“You sleep with anyone else since we hooked up?” 

Now Beth _really_ wishes she hadn’t asked it. She nods once, then braces herself to look up at him. Rio’s face is indifferent, unreadable. 

“Why’d you stop sleeping with her? And the other one?” 

Rio takes his hand back from her hair and rubs his jaw. “Because I didn’t want to sleep with them anymore.” 

Beth rolls her head back, stretching out her shoulders. She can sense Rio is shutting down. 

“Who did you sleep with?” he asks her. 

“My husband,” Beth admits, and she can see Rio’s face twitch involuntarily, but that’s all he does or says. “And it was terrible, and I wish I hadn’t.”

“Okay,” Rio says, but Beth can feel his irritation radiating off of him.

“Why didn’t you want to sleep with them anymore?” Beth asks. “Did it have something to do with m—us?” 

Rio takes Beth’s hand from his belt loops and laces her fingers with hers. “Yeah.”

It’s just one word, but Beth can hardly believe he said it. She feels butterflies flutter in her stomach.

“My turn,” Rio reminds her. “Can I kiss you?” 

“Yes,” Beth breathes, and he holds out his hand for her to stand up. They’re face to face and Beth finds it hard to swallow, looking at him like this. The kiss is gentle and short, but it makes Beth feel wobbly all over.

“You go,” Rio says, and he nuzzles his nose into her collarbone.

“What is this?” Beth feels his shoulders stiffen underneath her hands, but she can’t stop pretending she doesn’t want to know. 

“What do you mean?” he asks. 

“I mean, _this._ ” She gestures around the room at their clothes all over the floor. “This feels like one thing but—I heard you tell Elena it wasn’t serious.”

“Oh, you did, huh?” Beth expects him to revert to a state of agitation that she'd been eavesdropping, but he doesn’t. 

“Yeah, well, when I realized I forgot my keys... I heard you arguing in the hallway.” Beth bites her lip.

“How much you catch?” 

“Not a lot,” Beth concedes. “There were a lot of words I don’t know. But I heard her ask if we were serious—at least, I think I did.”

“Yeah, she asked that.” Rio nods and searches Beth’s eyes. 

“And you said no.” Beth is terrified and asking is humiliating, but she’d rather know now, if it’s nothing. 

“Wow, you weren't exaggerating. You really don’t know a word of Spanish, do you?” he asks, the corners of his mouth twitching. “I think what I actually said was _no sé_.”

“Okay…” Beth takes in a breath. “And what does that mean?”

“It doesn’t mean no,” Rio tells her, and he presses his nose to hers. “If we’re bein’ honest—”

“We are—”

“It means ‘I don’t know.’ Because I don’t.” He runs his finger along her lip. “There’s a lot up in the air.”

Beth’s about to start forming words when her phone buzzes: Dean’s ringtone.

“Shit,” she says. “I have to go.” She pushes him away from her and moves to start scooping up her things.

Rio is taken aback, startled by her sudden change in demeanor. 

“I can’t—I can’t be here,” she tries to explain. “It’s Dean. I’m not allowed—I can’t be around you.” Tears sting her eyes because she doesn’t want to leave, she doesn’t want to go home to him in that house, she doesn’t want this bubble that she and Rio exist in right now to pop. 

“You serious?” he asks, his forehead creased.

Beth stops stuffing things into her purse and looks at him. “Here.” She walks back over to him and reaches behind her neck, unclasping the necklace. She presses it in his hand. 

“What’s this for?”

“Just… hold onto it for me, okay?”

Rio’s still not at ease, but his expression softens. Beth knows that he’s trusting her to go and come back to him, somehow, some way. Still, though, she’s not entirely sure when or how she’ll be able to make that happen, so the sound of his front door clicking shut behind her feels very loud and very permanent. 

**Author's Note:**

> I studied Spanish for 5 years but I'm still sure I butchered some of that, but it should translate okay on Google translate if you can't piece it together through context clues :) I left it untranslated in text because Beth has no idea what they're saying.


End file.
